Running + yoga = Synergy

Aye, aye, aye! [is that spelled correctly?]

As stated in a previous post, I [Teresa] am a high school business teacher. The school year started last week and between being prepared for my active teenage minds, re-adjusting to being a working mom, trying to squeeze in workouts, grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry… there is NO time to blog! Hoping to get in at least one-two posts per week, but it may be inconsistent for a while. 😦

Anyhow, most of you know that I am a runner and only a wannabe yogi. I started practicing more regularly this year and pretty much fell in love!

We incorporate it during some of our group runs for stretching…

We’ve posted about these previously, but we LOVE lululemon’s yoga poses for runners and use them frequently;

So back to the term in the title… SYNERGY = the interaction of two [or more] agents that produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.

Basically this means that running and yoga on their own are pretty cool… but together, they are AMAZING!

Why else would our favorite apparel store combine these two things?

I’ll close with this. An excerpt from another blogger, Tracey, who has a passion for both yoga and running;

I am a yogi, and I am a runner.

I credit my running with the fact that I’ve never had any yoga injuries. A lot of my yogi friends have torn a hamstring or two, because they are constantly lengthening them and never contracting or strengthening them. The backs of my legs are really tight for a yogi – in fact, my heels have never reached the floor in downward facing dog – but I’ve never popped a hamstring either!

On the flip side, I credit my yoga practice with the fact that through over a decade of running, I’ve only suffered one small injury, an aggravated Achilles, which was quickly healed through acupuncture, and – you guessed it! – yoga. My running friends who skip the yoga are constantly suffering from heel spurs, shin splints, stress fractures and all manner of knee and ankle issues.

Early on in my yoga practice, I tried to give up running so that I wouldn’t sacrifice so much flexibility on the mat, but the truth is, I love to break a sweat. I know you can break a sweat in yoga, but I need to jump around, to propel my body forward, to move miles, not just move from up dog to down dog…